Midtown Madness 2

Some passengers alighted at Orheptal and some more boarded. However that was not before Baba Sixty-something had very nimbly switched seats to the row I was seated. So nimbly that I didn't notice until he turned towards my seatmate in the black suit (remember the guy who had still had his elbow in my thigh?), leaned over conspiratorially and whispered what I deduced to be, comments about the outlandish behavior of the gentleman who had just dismounted alighted from the bus. I would have thought they were acquainted the way the man was carrying on because he repeated this same action several times more until Mr. Black Suit alighted a few stops later (to my obvious relief). The latter however, studiously ignored him, except the first time when he seemed to have given the older man the benefit of doubt that he (Baba Sixty) was trying to communicate something tangible.

I shook my head again. The old man appeared to be agitated about something and seemed to be trying to get an audience for his grievances. Na by force. There's such a thing as soliloquy, I thought. You need to try it, Sir

Meanwhile, the bus approached Idowuegba bus stop and the sixty plus woman announced her intention to alight.

The conductor approached her for the fare again.

‘Come take am na,’ she retorted. The conductor grimaced. ‘Madam, you no reach make I dey fight. Abeg pay me my correct money.’

She ignored him. The bus slowed and came to a stop. She picked up her hand bag and began to make her way to the door. The conductor disembarked and assumed a ‘fighting’ stance just outside the open door. He barely allowed her standing space on alighting before he demanded, more viciously, ‘Pay me my money.’ The woman looked at him with a look of incredulity and offered the conductor the N50 note again.

‘This woman, you dey fin trouble o!’ he declared for the benefit of all present.

The woman was unperturbed and made to pass. The conductor readjusted his position to foil her attempt. By now, an impatient buzz had begun to rise from the onlooking passengers.  The driver quickly intervened.

‘Gba lowo e, jare!’ he said, instructing his conductor to accept the money so they could get on with the day. With that he characteristically let out the clutch sharply and the bus jolted briefly. The conductor evaluated his dilemma and snatched the note.

‘You no go respect yourself, old mama like you,’ he said as he leaped back to his perch at the door.

The woman obviously emboldened at her seeming victory turned, ‘I for see wetin you wan do now. You go beat me?’

With that, she and the conductor exchanged a short string of invectives that lost potency as the accelerating bus increased the distance between the verbal combatants.

The driver just fumed and muttered at how inefficient his conductor was.

At the very next stop, Mr. Black Suit got off and I judiciously angled farther away from the grumbling old man. I think my body language convinced him I would not make a good confidante for he did not bother me. When he alighted some bus stops later, I could still see him in the few moments it took for the bus to pick up fresh passengers, walking down a side street, bemoaning the woes of Lagos-based folk, I suppose.

We concluded the journey a few minutes later without any other untoward occurrences. As I alighted still shaking my head, I said to myself, ‘another day, another story.’

This is Lagos!